Eastercon, Part One of Two
Friday, April 17th, 2009 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthThis morning's goal was to write up Eastercon, but it got long and I want to swim and shop ... so, FRIDAY AND SATURDAY.
This is a rag-bag of a review, as much (if not more) for my memory as for your entertainment ... Feel free to comment and correct anything that's blatantly wrong, incomplete etc. No, I am not using LJ tags, just in case anyone doesn't want to be outed.
☼ indicates a photograph
Friday
En route to Bradford [☼], we stopped at Woolsthorpe Manor, home of Isaac Newton. [☼] He wasn't in (and there was no sign of a cat-flap). My photos here. (Photography not permitted inside the house, which is a shame as they have very few postcards on sale and the guidebook doesn't contain the shots I wanted either.)
I fizzled out fairly early on Friday (long drive, diving straight into convention -- though I wasn't ready for actual programme apart from Art Show Launch [☼] which is a shame) and took the opportunity to marvel at the fresh, vividly lime-green paint in my hotel room. [☼]
Saturday
Morning in the bar, catching up with friends and talking to new people. Also, chocolate. [☼, ☼]
Music of the Spheres (2pm; Ricardo Pinto, Doug Fazzani, Emma J King, Nicholas Jackson, Gary Lloyd, Andrew Patton)
How music and our understanding of the cosmos have developed hand in hand.
Pythagoras, Kepler, the Antikythera Device (GP worked on an algorhythmic piece based on this -- the actual device sounded 'rubbish'); the harmonics of non-circular orbits;
RP: it's a mindset -- maths, music, astronomy are all ways of making predictions about and gaining understanding of the world
(Shawna mentions the quadrivium -- astronomy, geometry, music, arithmetic -- but in modern times we lump together geometry and arithmetic as 'maths')
EK brings in string theory -- different particles => different modes of vibration
(AP: string theory explains everything that's possibly true: the problem is in narrowing it down to what's true for us!)
DF: what ended the Classical age of music was the mechanical nature of traditional Bach-style harmony
GL: the 12-tone system (Schoenberg etc) is a scientific system -- use each of 12 notes just once. ... Onto Debussy and whole-tone music, which can lack a sense of resolution or ending.
DF: Pussycat Dolls (current #1) samples the music from Slumdog Millionaire -- sophisticated tonal music
GL: music physically changes the brain ...
AP: Three anniversaries -- Darwin 150 (music as communication); Apollo 40 (the moon rings like a bell when something, e.g. a Saturn rocket, hits it); Galileo 400 (apparently one of Galileo's fingers is on display at an astronomy exhibition in Florence!)
I wish I'd made it to any of Emma King's other programme -- she's a science communicator and knows how to make her subject clear and engaging.
Not the Clarke Award (3:30pm; Edward James, Farah Mendlesohn, Claire Brialey, Tony Keen, Tanya Brown, Simon Bradshaw)
Discussion of the latest shortlist / what we'd pick / what the real jury might pick
[☼][☼]
We note that the shortlisted novels are all by authors in the second half of the alphabet ... as if the jury were going through the list of 46 submitted titles and could not agree on anything for a while.
Summary: what will win? McAuley or Stephenson, we thought. What should win? McAuley or Reynolds, we hoped.
Some points:
- are we judging the author, or their complete works, or the novel in question? (A couple of panellists argued, against Reynolds' House of Suns, that it was too similar in structure to one or more of his previous novels. I haven't read those novels: I'm judging the book as a standalone. And Paul McAuley's The Quiet War turns out to fit into a framework of short stories and projected sequel -- again, I was not aware of these. I'm levelling the same charge against the Tepper: a much better novel if you haven't read much Tepper.)
- books omitted: Farah hit the nail on the head about what we want on the Clarke shortlist. "I couldn't stand [book X] but I'd want it on the shortlist -- it's engaging." I didn't note all the suggestions but Banks' Matter, Baxter's Flood and Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World were certainly mentioned
The BSFA Awards (6pm)
entertainingly presented by McAuley and Newman [☼] -- Mr Newman revealed himself to be a sekrit Queen fan, Mr McAuley did not do a little dance -- who riffed on Arthur C Clarke, H G Wells and others. Winners: ART: Andy Bigwood, cover Subterfuge. NON-FICTION: Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy. SHORT STORY: Ted Chiang, 'Exhalation'. NOVEL: Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions. Congratulations to all!
Doctor Who (6:45pm) was cheerful prime-time SF TV with actual science (Faraday cages!) and the patent TBO (Total Bollocks Overdrive).
Photographic evidence [☼] would suggest that I spent Saturday night in the bar -- missing the concert, I suspect because I needed food. (Note to self: next con, try to get out of the hotel for at least one meal ... con food didn't distress me as much as it did some people, but I did miss out on the social side of dining!) Am now kicking myself because all reports of concert were positive (though a few people were unimpressed by the Wagner, as is only right).
This is a rag-bag of a review, as much (if not more) for my memory as for your entertainment ... Feel free to comment and correct anything that's blatantly wrong, incomplete etc. No, I am not using LJ tags, just in case anyone doesn't want to be outed.
☼ indicates a photograph
Friday
En route to Bradford [☼], we stopped at Woolsthorpe Manor, home of Isaac Newton. [☼] He wasn't in (and there was no sign of a cat-flap). My photos here. (Photography not permitted inside the house, which is a shame as they have very few postcards on sale and the guidebook doesn't contain the shots I wanted either.)
I fizzled out fairly early on Friday (long drive, diving straight into convention -- though I wasn't ready for actual programme apart from Art Show Launch [☼] which is a shame) and took the opportunity to marvel at the fresh, vividly lime-green paint in my hotel room. [☼]
Saturday
Morning in the bar, catching up with friends and talking to new people. Also, chocolate. [☼, ☼]
Music of the Spheres (2pm; Ricardo Pinto, Doug Fazzani, Emma J King, Nicholas Jackson, Gary Lloyd, Andrew Patton)
How music and our understanding of the cosmos have developed hand in hand.
Pythagoras, Kepler, the Antikythera Device (GP worked on an algorhythmic piece based on this -- the actual device sounded 'rubbish'); the harmonics of non-circular orbits;
RP: it's a mindset -- maths, music, astronomy are all ways of making predictions about and gaining understanding of the world
(Shawna mentions the quadrivium -- astronomy, geometry, music, arithmetic -- but in modern times we lump together geometry and arithmetic as 'maths')
EK brings in string theory -- different particles => different modes of vibration
(AP: string theory explains everything that's possibly true: the problem is in narrowing it down to what's true for us!)
DF: what ended the Classical age of music was the mechanical nature of traditional Bach-style harmony
GL: the 12-tone system (Schoenberg etc) is a scientific system -- use each of 12 notes just once. ... Onto Debussy and whole-tone music, which can lack a sense of resolution or ending.
DF: Pussycat Dolls (current #1) samples the music from Slumdog Millionaire -- sophisticated tonal music
GL: music physically changes the brain ...
AP: Three anniversaries -- Darwin 150 (music as communication); Apollo 40 (the moon rings like a bell when something, e.g. a Saturn rocket, hits it); Galileo 400 (apparently one of Galileo's fingers is on display at an astronomy exhibition in Florence!)
I wish I'd made it to any of Emma King's other programme -- she's a science communicator and knows how to make her subject clear and engaging.
Not the Clarke Award (3:30pm; Edward James, Farah Mendlesohn, Claire Brialey, Tony Keen, Tanya Brown, Simon Bradshaw)
Discussion of the latest shortlist / what we'd pick / what the real jury might pick
[☼][☼]
We note that the shortlisted novels are all by authors in the second half of the alphabet ... as if the jury were going through the list of 46 submitted titles and could not agree on anything for a while.
- MacLeod, Song of Time. We agreed that the writing is glorious but mostly felt that the novel fizzled out, that the denouement didn't support the weight of the build-up. This made me want to read more MacLeod.
- McAuley, The Quiet War. This is rather too quiet for me, and I find the info-dumps intrusive, but it was popular with the rest of the panellists and came out as overall 'would win if we were the jury' and odds-on favourite for 'what will win on 29th April'.
- Reynolds, House of Suns: the runner-up in 'what we want to win'. This novel makes me want to read lots more big-screen sensawunda SF. Criticisms included the argument that it's too similar to his previous novels
- Stephenson, Anathem: I argued for this to be discarded third on the basis that it's over-long and somewhat flabby. "Fascination overload," I quote. The panel was divided, though several agreed it was Too Damned Long.
- Tepper, The Margarets: discarded second. I almost electrocuted Farah by timing a remark -- that she and I were reading very different editions of the book -- just as she sipped water. Generally this was felt to be sentimental, eco-nazi tosh, with too many kitties. I argue that, for all its SFnal setting, it's actually a fairy-tale: M splits into seven selves (7 a magical number); kindness to animals is rewarded; quest fantasy ...
- Wernham, Martin Martin's on the Other Side: we discarded this first, none of us liked it though Farah did say it had an excellent sense of place.
Summary: what will win? McAuley or Stephenson, we thought. What should win? McAuley or Reynolds, we hoped.
Some points:
- are we judging the author, or their complete works, or the novel in question? (A couple of panellists argued, against Reynolds' House of Suns, that it was too similar in structure to one or more of his previous novels. I haven't read those novels: I'm judging the book as a standalone. And Paul McAuley's The Quiet War turns out to fit into a framework of short stories and projected sequel -- again, I was not aware of these. I'm levelling the same charge against the Tepper: a much better novel if you haven't read much Tepper.)
- books omitted: Farah hit the nail on the head about what we want on the Clarke shortlist. "I couldn't stand [book X] but I'd want it on the shortlist -- it's engaging." I didn't note all the suggestions but Banks' Matter, Baxter's Flood and Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World were certainly mentioned
The BSFA Awards (6pm)
entertainingly presented by McAuley and Newman [☼] -- Mr Newman revealed himself to be a sekrit Queen fan, Mr McAuley did not do a little dance -- who riffed on Arthur C Clarke, H G Wells and others. Winners: ART: Andy Bigwood, cover Subterfuge. NON-FICTION: Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy. SHORT STORY: Ted Chiang, 'Exhalation'. NOVEL: Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions. Congratulations to all!
Doctor Who (6:45pm) was cheerful prime-time SF TV with actual science (Faraday cages!) and the patent TBO (Total Bollocks Overdrive).
Photographic evidence [☼] would suggest that I spent Saturday night in the bar -- missing the concert, I suspect because I needed food. (Note to self: next con, try to get out of the hotel for at least one meal ... con food didn't distress me as much as it did some people, but I did miss out on the social side of dining!) Am now kicking myself because all reports of concert were positive (though a few people were unimpressed by the Wagner, as is only right).
